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The SimPueblo project is an interactive I completed as my Master's Thesis for New Mexico Highlands University for the Coronado Historic Site in Bernalillo, New Mexico. The beautiful historic site, located on the bank of the Rio Grande, houses the ruins of the Kuaua Pueblo. Archaeologists painstakingly unearthed the foundations of these pueblo buildings and were able to figure out how the buildings would have worked.

This project began with Americorps Intern Craig Cassidy who developed the original idea and an iPad-driven prototype. He made archeological 3D models of the pueblo's buildings and turned them into designs for 3D prints. I took his original prototype and converted it to use with the HP Sprout, an immersive, all-in-one PC that has two touch screens, a 3D camera, and more.

Here is a video of my daughter using Sim Pueblo.

For all the information about the project (methodology, history, etc), feel free to check out my slides below.

Using this platform, we’re able to make an interactive that tracks the addition of buildings and provides feedback, allowing you to recreate the original Kuaua Pueblo. The addition of the buildings to the mat corresponds to the recreation of a beautiful mural representing Kuaua’s history coming to life. As buildings are added, they unlock animations such as crops, animals, pottery, and sounds that can be added to your pueblo.

The user interface for Sim-Pueblo in an earlier form. This is displayed on the upper screen, while additions like pottery and characters display below.
From a technical standpoint, this is being developed on an HP Sprout using the C#/WPF bindings. In order to track the individual buildings, we're using very small (about one to three square centimeter) 2D unique tags. We're using the Sprout SDK's native object-tracking methods to track the tags and then convert those coordinates into the coordinates for the 3D buildings as they appear on the screen.

It was demonstrated at the Museums and the Web 2016 conference in LA, and I presented the project for my defense in late July.